Have just started trial fitting all of the panels and bumper after 2 1/2 years of stripping, cleaning, rebuilding, ect.... Now are there any suggestions/regrets from people who have been down this road before and looking back are kicking themselves that they did not do something while the car is torn down to the basic body shell? I am trying to think of all the angles here but there is always something.
Work so far: strip body to metal then DP40, cleaned/powdered coated suspension,new fuel pump,sandblasted every bolt,painted engine bay,rebuil engine and trans and rear end,complete poly bushing kit. All wearable items will be replaced with new parts.
Here are a few recent picts....

 

Looks great! The only thing I regret from when I redid my car is painting the engine bay. I wish I would have spent more time on the prep but I was young and excited. I'll have to spend more time there when the new engine goes in. Live and learn I suppose. I think its great seeing an 83 being redone. Most of the time people write off our cars (82-84) and deem them less desirable. Keep up the good work.

 

Looks good...I'll be doing the same to mine some day Need a bigger garage!
Sweet DeLorean also, always wanted one!

 

Nice!! i think silver looks hot on our cars!

82-84 trans ams and firebirds by far are the nicest out of all the thirdgen firebirds t/a's

red and blue doesnt look so good on our cars though

 

It looks as if it has been a little over a year since I posted some updated picts of the 83 Trans Am I am doing a complete teardown and rebuild on.

Started 2004 and still going

 

Glad to see you're sticking with the Cease Fire Injection Not a ton of them left anymore.

 

Looks like it is coming along nicely. I also love the fact you are sticking with the CFI!

 

The attached image limit is three.
Please respect the rules and remote host images if you wish to post more.
You decide which three you wish to leave attached.
Thank you.

 

What about the GTA's they are one of the best looking third gen's too lol....but anyway nice cars...

 

I love the 82/83's! Nice to see one being saved. Looks like a well optioned car. Charles

 

I love the early birds too (82-84).
I have an standard 83 , and my son and myself are restoring a 1983 DT500 and plan on keeping the CFI also, just because its so different than what is usually under the hood of a 3rd gen.

Keep up the great work, as it inspires us to keep our build on track!

Leon

 

why did you paint the underhood black if it's going to be silver? or are you doing a color change?

 

Nice to see an earlybird being resurrected! I know I miss my '84. It's really getting hard to find the '82-'84's in any kind of decent (fixable) condition. Looks like you're taking the time to do the job right! I agree with the others, it's cool to see you keeping the CFI. Is it staying a 305, or are you going to re-tune it and run a 350 or something else?

Keep up the great work!!

-Paul

 

all of this talk about early birds is making me wanna get started on my 83 T/A.
as soon as i sell the current short block i can start doing things. this is a current pic of it before we moved it out to my 2 acre property where i live now.
it looks alot worse than it actually is and the funny thing is its ALOT strighter than my 89 formula with less miles!!

 

wow nice ... I am really counting my lucky stars now that the talk is how hard these are to find in great shapw.. I live in alaska and bought my 83 Firebird SE with a 305 5 speed and T tops w/AC in really great shape.. the nice thing is I am the 3rd owner it looks like, and the original owner included the lifetime of maintenance receipts with the car which is about 2 pounds worth :P

I put those new bosch platinum +4 plugs in it and a good oil change it drives and handles like new still.. I love it 113k miles!

It does have a little damage on the drivers side, but from the estimates it is under a $1K to fix at a body shops.

I do need to replace all the locks and figure out why the power windows arent working tho.

 

Sorry, it has been a bit since I have logged in but I am glad to hear some others who can appreciate the underdog engine aka: CFI and that some others out there are restoring there early 80s TA. The car is going back to the stock black and gold colors and I tried to correct the problems that the CFI had from the factory to make it more worthy of the TA badge. It is very slow going process and with the price of gas it does not give me allot of motivations to finish it just to have it sit because I can not afford to feed the beast. As soon as I make some noticeable progress I will post some update pictures but for now I am just fixing some odds and ends to try to get the thing started this summer.

 

Looking good man, keep us up 2 date, can hardly wait to get my hands on an 82 Buying a house right now so the bird has got to wait for a bit, but as soon as I can I'm gonna get one and save it as we so nicely say